The report  Pure Dynamite: how Bolsonaro’s Government (2019-2022) Mineral Policy Set Up a Climate and Anti-Indigenous Bomb released on March 27 by the Mining Observatory and Smoke Signal, has been generating debate and resulted in public hearings in the House of Representatives and the Senate.

The document, which analyzed the Brazilian mineral policy during the Bolsonaro government, pointed out the existence of illegal favoring to the mining industry, and called into into question the system of self-licensing and mineral exploration in indigenous lands.

The report was featured in more than 350 media outlets, including Agência Brasil, TV Brasil and Miriam Leitão’s column in O Globo, generating reactions from both environmentalists and the mining industry.

On Thursday, April 27, the House of Representatives held a public hearing on the report’s findings, stocking the debate on the Brazilian mineral policies. Participating in the hearing were Daniel Pollack, Superintendent of Revenue at the National Mining Agency (ANM), Maurício Ângelo, Founder and Director of the Mining Observatory, and Rebeca Lerer, founder and coordinator of Smoke Signal.

“There has been a shock indoctrination, with fake news and disinformation, in addition to deregulation (of legislation), equipping of social control institutions, demobilization of control bodies, and criminalization of social movements. We saw a mix of tactics to advance a predatory land use agenda, whether for mining or agriculture, which resulted in increased violence and deforestation,” said Lerer.

The hearing participants contributed with questions about the situation of miners, the proper destination of CFEM (Financial Compensation for Mineral Exploration) resources in the municipalities, and the impossibility of pointing an example of “sustainable mining”. You can watch the public hearing on Youtube.

On Wednesday, May 10, the Federal Senate hosted a debate on the “Pure Dynamite” report and examined the 4 years of climate and anti-indigenous activities carried out by the government of Jair Bolsonaro. The event was attended by several experts, including Maurício Angelo of the Mining Observatory, André Elias Marques, Ombudsman of the National Mining Agency, and Suely Araújo, former president of Ibama and senior public policy specialist at the Climate Observatory, as well as the remote participation of Rebeca Lerer, coordinator of Smoke Signal, and Juliana de Paula Batista. representing the Socio-environmental Institute (SISA).

The main focus of the debate was “mineral denialism” and self-licensing in the mining sector on indigenous lands. In addition, it was discussed that mining represents only about 1% of Brazilian GDP, consumes 11% of electricity, and employs only 200,000 people, many of them in high-risk, outsourced activities. Environmental licensing was another highlight, with pressure from mining companies and industry to include mining in the Licensing Law (PL 3729). The influence that mining companies have on the licensing process was seen as a problem, as they have encouraged dams in an imminent state of disruption throughout the country. The full debate is available on the Senate website.

The Federal Supreme Court (STF) unanimously suspended the legal provision that established the “presumption of good faith” in the gold market. This instrument allowed gold to be traded in Brazil only based on the sellers’ information about the origin of the product. The court decided to follow the individual decision issued by justice Gilmar Mendes on April 4th.

The measure was considered by the Court as one of the main legal loopholes for laundering gold extracted from indigenous lands and environmental reserves. It is expected that the decision will make illegal gold trafficking more difficult and protect the environment and indigenous people.

In an exclusive report by the Institute for Socioeconomic Studies (Inesc) for O Eco, it was found that throughout his mandate, Jair Bolsonaro has allocated only 0.16% of the total federal budget to the environment. This number refers to the average of the four years of his government, considering the mandatory and discretionary expenses of the executive branch. The report, entitled “After the Dismantling: Overview of Union Spending 2019-2022,” shows that the environmental area had a real loss of 17% in execution during the Bolsonaro administration, going from R$3.3 billion in 2019 to R$2.7 billion in 2022.

The Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation (ICMBio) was the most affected organization, with a real drop of 32% over four years, falling from R$1.8 billion in 2019 to R$744 million in 2022. The Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (Ibama) also had an 8% reduction in its budget, going from R$1.8 billion to R$1.7 billion during the Bolsonaro administration. Inesc’s report highlights that the reduced budget was further exacerbated by staff reductions, with the number of environmental inspectors falling from 1,800 in 2019 to 700 in 2022.

During the ministerial meeting in which he presented the results of the first 100 days of government, President Lula said that Brazil will meet the goal of zero deforestation in the Amazon by 2030 and that the federal government will fight devastation in all Brazilian biomes. The commitment to zero deforestation in the Amazon was made by Lula during his presidential campaign last year and reaffirmed at his inauguration ceremony in January. However, the president warned that the task will not be easy, since the country’s environmental policy was dismantled during the four years of the previous government.

Since mid-January, the federal government has resumed operations to inspect and fight deforestation in the Amazon, resulting in a 219% increase in the number of fines for deforestation and other infractions in the Amazon region in the first quarter, compared to the average of the previous four years. The intensification of the fight against the devastation of the Amazon forest brought an 11% drop in deforestation in the region in the first quarter of this year, compared to 2022, but experts point out that more rigorous enforcement and fewer concessions to agribusiness are still needed to meet the goal of zero deforestation by 2030.

The Office of the Attorney General  (AGU) has allowed the collection of at least BRL 29.1 billion in environmental fines levied by the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA) to continue. The opinions reject the statute of limitations for environmental fines levied by the agency and were approved by the Union’s Attorney General, Jorge Messias, on Monday (20/3).

The measure provides legal security for the continuity of the collection of fines, which had been annulled by orders drawn up by the former president of IBAMA, Eduardo Bim, during the Bolsonaro government.

The Supreme Court (STF) ruled on Thursday (21) to annul a federal transfer contract of Fernando de Noronha archipelago made with the state of Pernambuco. The assignment agreement was considered illegal by the STF in a unanimous vote.

Justice Alexandre de Moraes, the rapporteur of the case, stated that the Federal Constitution prohibits a state from transferring part of its territory to another. The contract signed between Pernambuco and the federal government was declared null and void. The decision paves the way for the federal government to reevaluate the economic exploitation model of the island and thus protect public heritage more effectively.

Marina Silva, Brazil’s Minister of Environment and Climate Change, spoke in an interview about controversial topics such as fossil fuel exploration in the Amazon and the renewal of the operating license for the Belo Monte hydroelectric plant on the Xingu River. Marina declared that, in her personal opinion, Petrobras cannot continue being an oil company, because it needs to make the transition to renewable energies.

She also referred to Belo Monte as a “trauma,” acknowledging the damage done to local populations and the environment, and expressed concern about the current state of the ministry, which has been significantly undersized and undermined during Jair Bolsonaro’s tenure.

The temporary commission of the Brazilian Federal Senate to monitor the humanitarian crisis in Yanomami Indigenous Land approved its work plan last Wednesday (8/3). According to the rapporteur of the commission, Senator Dr. Hiran (Progressistas-RR), more than 19,000 gold miners have left the area since the eviction operation began last February. The president of IBAMA, Brazil’s environmental agency, Rodrigo Agostinho, also supports this: “We have removed almost 80%, 90% of the gold miners.”

The Senate commission also requested information on the funds released by the Amazon Fund and invited indigenous and environmental organizations for public hearings. Meanwhile, federal forces continue anti-gold mining actions and have already applied penalties of over R$10 million.

The Minister of the Environment, Marina Silva, visited Yanomami Land on Saturday (4) to see firsthand the actions implemented by IBAMA to curb illegal gold mining. She went to the inspection base in the Palimiú community, where armed gold miners fired at agents, and flew over regions invaded by the garimpeiros. She was astonished by what she saw in the territory: “The degradation is immeasurable,” she said.

The Federal Supreme Court (STF) unanimously declared unconstitutional a law of the state of Roraima that prevented the destruction of private property seized in environmental operations in the state. The decision was made in a virtual session and confirmed the injunction granted by Justice Luis Roberto Barroso in Direct Actions of Unconstitutionality (ADIs) 7.200 and 7.204, proposed by the Rede Sustentabilidade party and the Attorney General’s Office (PGR).

The thesis established by the Justices is that the state law violates the exclusive competence of the Union to legislate on Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure, to issue general rules for environmental protection and as an affront to the right to an ecologically balanced environment.

During Ricardo Salles’ tenure as Minister of Environment in the Bolsonaro administration, the Ministry of the Environment decided to abandon the creation of protected areas in 167 federal lands, without making a fuzz or consulting technical staff. These areas are located in the Amazon, Cerrado, and Pantanal regions, covering eight Brazilian states across three regions of the country, including the states of Amazonas, Amapá, Pará, Roraima, Rondônia, Tocantins, Maranhão, and Mato Grosso.

Furthermore, on October 29, 2020, the ministry announced that it “has no interest in acquiring new areas for the creation of conservation units.” The decision was made without considering the concerns previously expressed by the ministry’s technical staff regarding these areas, according to an investigation by The Intercept Brasil.

However, there are at least 39 areas that should not have been discarded, according to ICMBio’s own technicians. These are large, well-preserved forest masses, totaling more than 8 million hectares – almost twice the size of the state of Rio de Janeiro – and are located in the states of Mato Grosso (16), Amazonas (10), Pará (9), Rondônia (2), and Roraima (2).

The destruction of an isolated Indigenous land even under protection of a judicial decision led the Conservation agency ICMBio to set up a task force in the state of Tocantins. Federal agents found cattle inside the “Mata do Mamão”, in the Bananal Island, an ecological sanctuary of primary forest where the Amazon, Cerrado and Pantanal biomes meet. The Mata do Mamão is also home to Isolated indigenous group Avá- Canoeiro. 

To protect them, since 2019 the passing of non-indigenous in the are was prohibited by the Federal Justice; however, the decision has not been enforced. According to ICMBio, 12 years ago Mata do Mamão was double in size in comparison to today – the legal decision aimed to to contain the illegal occupation by cattle ranchers, but failed. The task force has thus been formed with environmental agents to investigate land related crimes and identify who was responsible.

On his first day in office, president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) signed the first decrees revoking or repealing measures adopted by his predecessor Jair Bolsonaro. The so-called “revogaço” (a package of repeals) was promised during Lula’s election campaign and targeted firearms policies, environment and secrecy practices involving public data. 

With regards to the environmental agenda, the president signed the following decrees: determined a 45-day deadline to finalize a proposal to regulate the National Council for the Environment (CONAMA, which was strongly damaged under Bolsonaro); ; reestablishment of rules to reopen the Amazon Fund (shut down by Bolsonaro in the first few months of this government) – both Norway and Germany announced R$ 3,3 billion of Fund resources for immediate release; revoked a decree permitting gold mining inside protected and sensitive areas that was signed by Bolsonaro;  resuming the Action Plan to Prevent and Control Deforestation, including all Brazilian biomes to reach the zero deforestation target; reviewed the norms for environmental fines and sanctions, excluding practises that led to impunity for environmental criminals (that were also weakened by Bolsonaro); established the permanent Interministerial Commission to Prevent and Control Deforestation engaging 19 federal ministries, including the Ministry of Climate and Environment, Agriculture and Livestock, Agrarian Development and Indigenous Peoples; the decrees also rearranged the civil society participation on the board of the National Environmental Fund and gave back to the Ministry of the Environment the control over the Rural Property Database (which was moved to Agriculture under Bolsonaro). 

On Monday January 2nd, Funai had its name changed: created in 1967 as the National Indian Foundation, it is now called National Foundation for Indigenous People.  FUNAI is now part of the structure of the newly established Ministry of Indigenous People. For the first time also, Funai is presided over by an indigenous woman, the former federal deputy Joenia Wapichana. 

On the same day, Minister Marina Silva canceled a norm created by former minister of the Environment Ricardo Salles that took away important technical attributions to Ibama’s environmental agents. According to  Brasil de Fato publication, the norm paralyzed Ibama’s inspections and law enforcement capacities. A survey by Estadao media showed that out of 1,154 infractions and fines issued after October 2019, when Salles changed the rules, 98% were not enforced or charged. Marina Silva also determined that infractions and fines must be made publicly available on the internet. During Bolsonaro’s government, the database on infractions and fines were made inaccessible. It was also determined that 50% of money raised with fines will be destined to the National Environmental Fund (FNMA), to support environmental policies. Minister Marina also said that more repeals and changes will be published in the upcoming days and weeks.

The president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) was sworn in and took on as president of Brazil on Sunday, January 1st. In his inauguration speech at the National Congress, Lula included several promises and ambitious goals for his government ‘s socio environmental agenda. He said that the goal is to reach zero deforestation in the Amazon and to promote an economic transition that puts Brazil on the path to sustainability. 

“No other country has the conditions of Brazil to become an environmental super power based on creative bioeconomy and biodiversity entrepreneurship”, said the president. “We will kick start the energy-ecological transition to more sustainable agribusiness and mining, with a greener industry and a stronger small scale agriculture” (…)”We want to reach zero deforestation in the Amazon and also zero GHG emissions from our energy matrix. We want to recover and use already degraded areas such as pastures. Brazil does not need more deforestation to keep and expand its strategic agriculture frontier”, he added, reassuring that the government will continue to secure farmers the “freedom and opportunity to sow, plant and reap”.

“However we can not admit a “lawless land”, and we won’t tolerate violence against small farmers, deforestation and environmental degradation that caused far too much harm to our country”, he stressed. According to Lula, the need to protect the forest is one of the key reasons for the creation of the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples. “Nobody knows our forests, or is better prepared to stand for them, than those who have been here since immemorial times. Each demarcated indigenous land is a new environmentally protected area”(…) “we bear a historic debt and owe these Brazilians respect; we will revoke all injustices committed against the indigenous peoples”. 

The indigenous chief Raoni Metuktire, 90, ancient leader of the Kayapo people, told the press he was happy to be invited by Lula to join him at the inauguration ceremony. Chief Raoni is internationally recognized as a historic defender of indigenous people and was attacked several times by former president Bolsonaro; he was one of seven representatives of Brazilian social diversity to pass on the sash to president Lula at the presidential palace. 

“Now, we have approached the government and want the indigenous people to be remembered. I asked Lula to help indigenous people and reminded him of the still non demarcated lands. I hope that the government demarcates the lands to secure peace to indigenous people. To my indigenous relatives, I declare I did my part, took the opportunity to speak to the president and called his attention to us”, affirmed Raoni.

The final report of a external commission of the House of Representatives that is following the investigation of the murder of the Brazilian indigenous activist Bruno Pereira and the English journalist Dom Phillips, in the region of Vale do Javari (AM), was approved. The report calls for the creation of a Parliamentary Inquiry Commission (CPI) to investigate crimes committed in the region, among other measures.

The External Commission of the Chamber of Deputies holds the Brazilian State responsible for not being present in the Javari Valley, which is overrun by international drug trafficking, illegal fishers and illegal mining. The rapporteur, congresswoman Vivi Reis (PSOL-PA), highlighted the “planned omission of the government in favor of organized crime” and the lack of action by authorities in the face of “tragedy foretold”, referring to the potential for conflicts involving various interests in the region.

A study conducted by the MapBiomas network indicates that in 2020, 51.1% of the area used for gold mining in Brazil was in illegal areas. According to the data from the monitoring initiative, there were 97.8 thousand hectares of gold mining area in Brazil in the analyzed period, of which 92.3 thousand hectares were “garimpo”, small gold digging sites that usually are illegal, and 5.5 thousand hectares were industrial mining. The map was superimposed on the mining processes (PMs) authorized in 2019, revealing the illegality of more than half of the “garimpo” areas.

In recent years, the country has suffered from the aggressive advance of mining activity in protected areas, especially Indigenous Lands. According to the report, between 2019 and 2020, 45% of this growth occurred in unauthorized territories.

The document also highlights the pressure of bills in protected areas. “The approval of PL 191/2020 can lead to a new gold rush inside Indigenous Lands and give amnesty to those who already carried out exploitation before the regulation of mining in these territories. The core of the discussion should be the development of control and enforcement measures between government agencies such as ANM, IBAMA, ICMBio, Federal Revenue Service and Federal Police in order to mitigate the socio-environmental damage of illegal exploitation in the country,” says the text.

An internal document from the Chico Mendes Biodiversity Institute (ICMBio), responsible for the management of parks and conservation units, indicates that the agency is without resources to maintain the 3,0000 temporary employees who work directly in support operations to the agency. The General Coordination of Finance and Revenue sent the alert, to which the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo had access, to the institute’s board of directors.

The ICMBio has only 1,300 fixed employees and depends on temporary contracts to protect Brazil’s Conservation Units, especially during the fire season, which starts in May and lasts until November.

Questioned by the report, the agency said that “there are no budget cuts planned” and that it will keep “the same number of temporary agents hired in the federal conservation units”.

A new version of the interactive panel Amazônia Minada (Mined Amazon) shows that the National Mining Agency (ANM) has 3,500 mining applications that overlap, totally or partially, with Indigenous Lands (TIs) and fully protected Conservation Units (UCs) in the Legal Amazon region. Despite being illegal, the federal autarchy continues to allow the requests to be processed. This is seen by analysts as a demonstration of leniency with mining and political pressure for changes in the legislation.

The platform, a partnership between InfoAmazônia, Amazon Watch and the Indigenous Peoples of Brazil Network, collects data from the ANM database on a daily basis and cross-references it with the boundaries of the indigenous land and conservation units of full protection in the Amazon region, identifying which requests overlap or touch on protected areas.

Only five of the 92 areas offered for extraction of oil and natural gas in the 17th Auction Round of exploratory blocks by the National Oil Agency (ANP) were sold, all in the Santos Basin, off the coast of São Paulo. Despite the failure, the general director of the ANP, Rodolfo Saboia, called the auction “a success”.

The 17th round of the ANP has been the target of intense protests by scientists, environmentalists and state governments, as 14 of the areas offered are close to the vital marine sanctuaries for Brazil’s reef ecosystem, such were the cases of Fernando de Noronha, Pernambuco state, and Atol das Rocas, Rio Grande do Norte. The Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation (ICMBio) considered, via a technical note, “reckless” to include the Potiguar Basin (RN) region in the auction.

The environmental threat was identified as one of the reasons for the low interest from bidders. “The best definition of this auction is high risk: discovery risk, logistical risk, environmental risk” stated Magda Chambriard, former director general of the ANP, to the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo.